SPEECH 



OF 



HON. PERCY WALKER. OF ALABAMA, 



DELIVERED 



IN THE HOUSE OP REPRESENTATIVES, DECEMBER 18, 1855, 



IN REFERENCE TO 



THE ORGANIZATION OF THE HOUSE. 



7 



\ 






WASHINGTON J 

PRINTED AT THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE OFFICE.; 

1855. 



ORGANIZATION OF THE HOUSE. 



The House being engaged with the question 
of election of Speaker, 

Mr. WALKER rose and said: I ask the gen- 
tleman from Iowa to witlidraw his resokition to 
enable me to make a personal explanation. 

Mr. THORIiyGTON. I will withdraw it for 
that purpose. 

Mr. WALKER. In taking my scat upon this 
floor I had determined, as a general rule for my 
action here, not to notice newspaper comments 
upon my course. But at this particular juncture, 
sir, in the condition of parties in this House, in 
view of the great popular anxiety caused by that 
condition, by the failure of this House thus far 
to effect an organization — knowing the fact, 
every member upon this floor, however humble, 
however unknown he may be, becomes the ob- 
ject of sci'utiny, of examination; and I feel it 
due to myself and to the party with which I have 
acted here, to vindicate my own conduct, and, as 
far as I can, attempt, at least, a vindication of 
that party. 

I hold in my hand a paper published in the 
southern extreme of this Union, a leading paper 
in my own district — a paper devoted to the advo- 
cacy of the Democratic party of this country. 
That paper, of the 13th of the present month, in 
commenting upon an article to be found in another 
paper published in the same city, but which 
paper supports the great principles of the Amer- 
ican party in that country — I say, in comment- 
ing upon that article, the paper I hold in my 
hand — the Mobile Register — uses the following 
language; 

" The Doinocratic party in Congress has taken its stand 
upon its principles — principles not of to day or to-monow, 



hut principles that wi!l stand the test of time, and remain 
the sure foundation of a party tliat appeals to the patriotism 
of the people to support it for their own and the couiitryV 
good. Tliey have no bargains to otier. They do not choose 
to buy southern Know Nothings to do their duty to their 
constituents with the paltry pelf of an office, or a contempt- 
ible advantage in the distribution of the powers of the 
House. Tliey offer a creed and a candidate that ought to 
command southern Know Nothing votes ; but the Adver- 
tiser and its small party in Congress prefer trifling to duty, 
prefer to waste their suffrages on impossible candidates to 
planting them where they will tel! against the enemies of 
the Soutli; and they salve their consciences under this 
solemn mocitery by upbraiding a solid bodyof seventy-nim; 
Democrats for not coming to tlieircorporal's guard of tliirly, 
and electing Humphrey Marshall. Oh, but they are will- 
ing to go to Richardson, but they have met with no en- 
couragement from the Democrats ; they have been treated 
with contempt. We fancy no Democrat would have thrown 
an obstacle in their way if they had walked up to vote for 
Richardson. If they have met witli a rebuff', then, it is on 
account of the trade they brought in their hands as a con- 
sideration for their voting for Richardson. They are ready 
to do their duty, ready to make common cause with tlie 
only party that is availal)le to condjat Abolitionism, pro- 
vided they get a valuable consideration for it. Out upon 
such transparent attempts to hoodwink the people of tliR 
South in reference to the true state of this ease ! The fact 
stands patent to the public eye, that the southern Know 
Notliings are engaged in solemn trifling, wliile they liave 
had itin tlieir power to have defeated the arch-conspirators, 
Seward, Weed, and Greeley, who are plotting against the 
safety of the South and tlie peace of tlic Union." 

In the issue of the same paper of the day pre- 
ceding this, in another article commenting upon 
the state of affairs in this House, the editors re- 
fer to mc by name, and charge me with having 
trifled in the discharge of my duty: they say, 
that upon a certain day I am recorded as having 
voted for a Mr. Davis for Speaker, and that in 
turn Mr. Davis voted for me. 

Now, sir, as I remarked before, under ordinary 
circumstances, I should ha'ye taken no heed to 
such comments; but I think the time has come 



4 



when every man's position upon this floor should 
not only be known to his fellow-members, but 
made known to the country. He should make 
known where he stands, and where he intends to 
stand. Why, sir, this small body of thirty men 
have not only been the target for the press of the 
country, but they have been used in this House 
in the game of shuttle-cock and battle-door, by 
the Republican.^ on the one side, and by the 
Democracy on the other. What has tlic gentle- 
man from Tennessee [Mr. Smith] said ? That the 
Democratic party was the only one in this House 
acting upon principle. Why, sir, it is the prin- 
ciple of party arrogance, of party cxclusivencss. 
They met in their preliminary caucus , and adopted 
i\ resolution which many of the calmer members 
of the party cannot but admit to be an insult to 
members upon this floor who agreed with them 
on the general principles of Government, and 
only differed with them in reference to a mere 
matter of legislative expediency. 

Well, what is the condition of this small body 
of thirty men? and where do they stand ? Have 
they acted thus far in a spirit of captiousness, of 
caprice ? What objects had they to gain .' What 
had been the result of persistency in their eff'orts 
upon this floor? Why, sir, is there a man here 
who has not before this realized the fact that, if 
these southern Know Nothings, on the opening 
of the session, had rallied to the support of the 
Democratic candidate, (and here permit me to say 
that I am glad to have met that gentleman in this 
Hall — I say it though not belonging to the party 
of which he is the standard-bearer — the compli- 
ment extended to him is justly his due;) the 
fact, I say, must now be realized by all parties, 
that, if the southern Know Nothings had, at the 
opening of the contest, thrown themselves into 
the ranks of that gentleman's supporters, there 
could have been no result other than to have/ree- 
s&iled the organization of the House. A union 
of the southern Know Nothings with the Dem- 
ocratic party could not have insured the election 
of Mr. Richardson, for tlie simple reason, that 
:the two forces united would not constitute a ma- 
jority of this House, and such an efl!brt would 
in all probability have placed the control of the 
House in the hands of the Free-Soilers. Then, 
so far as the southern Know Nothings of this 
House are concerned, the effect of our action has 
been to stave off" and prevent such an organiza- 
tion as the one mentioned. 

Rut, sir, that party claims to be a national one. 
It was said on yesterday, that its claim to na- 
tionality is predicated on — what? On a certain 
number of southern gentlemen calling themselves 



Democrats , who have united with fifteen gentlemen 
from northern States, only one or two, I believe, 
coming from a State further north than Pennsyl- 
vania. This union of a portion of southern mem- 
bers upon this floor with a small fragment of the 
northern representation, constitutes, in their ap- 
prehension, a full and complete title and ground 
to the claim of nationality. Contrast their posi- 
tion, so far as the claim to nationality is concerned , 
with that of the National America or Know 
Nothing party of this House. Some twenty-six 
or twenty-seven southern gentlemen with fifteen 
northern gentlemen, coming from some of the 
largest States in the Union, uniting for a common 
purpose, standing upon a basis known to this 
country, and pledged by their acts here to do — 
what? Why, to abide by existing laws on the 
subject of slavery; to resist with all their efforts 
a renewal of the agitation of the subject in and 
out of this Hall; and to vote for the admission 
of a State into the Union, whether its constitution 
does or does not recognize slavery as one of it.'? 
social institutions. This is the position of this 
much-abused and vilified American party of this 
House; and when I use the term "American 
party," understand me as only making applica- 
tion to those thirty or forty with whom I have 
thus far acted. 

But, say my Democratic friends, theirs is the 
only national party. National! Why, sir, its 
claims to nationality rest upon a sandy founda- 
tion. 

Now, I would ask them, and in no taunting 
spirit, whether they have the power to unite in 
harmonious action its members from different sec- 
tions ? I ask them to point me to any great princi- 
ple emblazoned upon their present banner, potent 
enough to break down geographical and sectional 
questions ? 

It has no just claim to nationality. It main- 
tains, it is true, here and there, its name and or- 
ganization, but it has long since lost that integrity 
of aim and purpose, that attaclmientto principle, 
which , heretofore won the popular regard and 
favor. 

It lives l)ut under the shadow of its past renown. 
It can only purchase a nationality by unmanly 
and disgraceful compromises. But even at such 
a cost its claim to nationality is an empty boast. 

North of Mason and Dixon's line it has shared 
the fate of its old adversary, and been absorbed 
in the swelling tide of Free-Soilism. 

At the South, it is divided between the sup- 
porters and the opponents of the Administration; 
and it is a fact known to the country, that its 
successes in the late elections, achieved as they 



were by the cooperation of Whigs — who, with- 
out any coincidence of opinion, save opposition 
to the American party, united with thcni for the 
time — have been rather the result of local and 
State issues, and a misconception of the aims 
and purposes of the new party, than any gen- 
eral popular recognition of any great, living 
principle of the Democratic party. I ask if this 
is not a portraiture of the Democratic party ? 
Yet this is their claim to nationality, and because 
southern men, having an identity of feeling with 
them, withho4d theii* cooperation, they are ac- 
cused as leaguing against that party with Free- 
Soilers. As long as that insulting resolution 
stares them in the face, and is not retracted, it 
places them in a humiliating position. I ask the 
members of that party, in all candor and kind- 
ness, whether they are just in putting us in that 
position ? 

Mr. JONES, of Pennsylvania. Will the gen- 
tleman allow me to make a single remark ? 

Mr. WALKER. Certainly. 

Mr. JONES. As I had the honor of submit- 
ting the resolution to which he refers, I wish to 
stale exactly what was meant by it. I will 
merely state that the nationality of Pennsylvania, 
instead of being represented upon this floor this 
day by six national votes, would poll seventeen 
for Mr. Richardson, if it were not for Know 
Nothingism, which is understood, in my coun- 
try, to be synonymous with Free-Soilism. The 
nationality of the Democratic party in this 
House, in my opinion, consists in this fact: that 
the ivhole body of the Democratic members from 
the J^orlh, and the lohole body of the Democratic 
members from the South, act together here as a 
unit. No other party here presents that aspect. 
Now the gentleman from Alabama certainly does 
not impute to me, or those gentlemen who voted 
for my resolution, an intention to insult any in- 
dividual, or any class of individuals. I am sure 
such was not the case. My friend will search 
those resolutions in vain to find a word about 
the American party. We speak of the Know 
Nothing party, which, in my country — and I 
presume it is the same elsewhere — means Free- 
Soihsm concealed, in contradistinction to Free- 
Soilism openly and publicly professed. 

I merely wish my friend to understand, as an 
allusion was made to the same thing yesterday, 
that, as I understand the Democracy, they only 
wished to place themselves on a national platform 
before the whole country, so that neither gentle- 
men from the North nor gentlemen from the 
South should misunderstand theirposition. They 
mean to stand upon that platform without com- 



promise or concession; they do it from devotion 
to what they believe to be a grfeat principle, and 
as a duty which they owe to their country; but 
they never did design to cast any imputation 
upon any class or classes of men. 

I hope, therefore, my friend from Alabama 
will understand that, in speaking of the Know 
Nothing party, as a Pennsylvania Democrat I 
mean to say that, but for that party by that 
name called and known — and the records of the 
country sustain me in that position — I believe 
that Pennsylvania this day would cast a voto 
"that no man would question the nationality of. 

Mr. ALLISON. Will the gentleman from 
Alabama allow me to put an inquiry to my col- 
league from the Berks district? 

Mr. WALKER. I will yield for that pur- 
pose. 

Mr. ALLISON. I wish to know whether I 
understood my colleague aright. I understood 
him to say that the principles of the Know 
Nothing party and of the Free-Soil or anti-Ne- 
braska party were identical, and therefore that 
there was not a majority of national Democrats 
from Pennsylvania on this floor. Now, if I un- 
derstood my colleague aright, I wish to say that 
I indorse the idea expressed by him — that had it 
not been for the fact that the people of Pennsyl- 
vania condemned the Kansas and Nebraska act 
of the last Congress, it might have been that sev- 
enteen national Democrats would have been found 
upon this floor; but having condemned that act, 
the Know Nothings and the Free-Soil party 
united, and Pennsylvania is represented here 
by a majority of those who condemn that act. 
[Laughter.] 

Mr. JONES. What was my colleague 's ques- 
tion? I did not understand it. 

Mr. ALLISON. The question I desired to put 
to my colleague was this: Whether I understood 
him aright to say that the sentiments of the Free- 
Soil party and the Know Nothing party were 
identical upon the question of the extension of 
slavery ? 

Mr. JONES. Yes; but I wish to explain my- 
self in three words, so that I cannot be misun- 
derstood. 

Mr. ALLISON. Oh, I perfectly agree with my 

colleague. 

Mr. JONES. What I meant to say, Mr. 
Clerk, was this, that the national Democratic 
party of Pennsylvania are willing any day, and at 
any hour, to meet the Free-Soil party, as known 
by that name, and to risk everything upon that 
issue before the people of Pennsylvania; but when 
a society, calling itself Know Nothing, is also in 



6 



the field, withasecretoi-ganization,andconccaling 
those very same Free-Soil principles — an under- 
ground organization with an above-ground opera- 
tion — between the two, the Democratic party is 
left with only six Representatives standing; but 
we are proud of those six. 

Mr. CAMPBELL, of Pennsylvania. Will 
the gentleman from Alabama allow me to say a 
word in reply to my colleague. 

Mr. "WALKER. Not now; I prefer to go on. 
We are all, Mr. Clerk, in the habit of hearing 
much said about principle and party, but I think 
the gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Jones,] 
in the preparation of his resolution which was 
adopted by the Democratic caucus, and the per- 
sistence of that party in adhering to that resolu- 
tion, only show what is by no means uncommon, 
that there is a proncness in all men to confound 
mere principle with party. They seem to forget, 
sir, that the two things are essentially different; 
that the principle had its birth long before party; 
that the party is a mere instrumentality to carry 
out an established fact which is an idea of the 
mind — a principle which, though it in fact has 
no substantiality, though it has no tangible shape 
or form to the outward eye, though I cannot hold 
it in my hand as I do this glass, yet, sir, that it 
has within itself a power and a vitality of its own, 
whilst, on the contrary, a party is a mere means 
for the purpose of carrying out and putting life 
into that principle. 

The gentleman says that the Democratic party 
stands upon principle. Now, what can you hear 
from their own ranks, from the more frank among 
them, upon this very subject of organizing this 
House, and of the object they had in view in 
placing themselves upon that platform ? Why, 
that they had no hope of obtaining the organiza- 
tion of this House; that many of them do not 
desire it; that they look at it as a hazardous thing 
for them in a party point of view; that the coun- 
try may possibly hold them responsible for what- 
ever legislation may take place in this Hall; and 
that, therefore, as a mere party movement, it 
may not be wise and politic for them to take the 
organization. And yet, forsooth, their action is 
based upon a naked, great conservative principle ! 
Arc there not men upon this floor who occupy 
the same ground with themselves upon this prin- 
ciple.' — a principle going back, if you please, to 
the great vital doctrine of State rights; an indi- 
rect recognition of the sovereignty of these States; 
that this Union, all glorious as it has been, se- 
curing, as it has done heretofore, all imaginable 
blessings, and serving as a means to carry out the 
purposes of its founders; yet that, after all, it is 



not the Union — the Union alone, upon which th 
reflecting man of this country bases his hopes 
and rests his affections. With him the Union is 
secondary in importance to the principles it was 
designed to perpetuate and establish, and is only 
worthy of the just man's and the patriot's rever- 
ence and support so long as it serves to carry out 
and perpetuates those principles. 

But I am wandering from my object. I spoke, 
in the first place, of the condition of these parties 
in the House. I will now, as I am upon the floor, 
say something of the condition of parties in the 
country, to account for the present aspect of polit- 
ical affairs in this country. How happens it, sir, 
that there is in fact no national party now ? How 
happens it that one great party has disappeared 
from the field of action, and that another party, 
which so long held sway upon the popular heart 
of this country, has lost its claim to nationality .' 
How happens it that we are broken up into seg- 
ments and fragments? How happens it that we 
arc all becoming more or less sectionalized in our 
professions ? Why, sn-, one of the reasons I will 
give you: Your party leaders — the men who 
molded the public thought, and directed the pop- 
ular heart, the men who made parties and gov- 
erned them by that power which is the result of 
rare combinations of mental and moral qualities, 
have left the stage of action. 

We no longer have the firm-handed, granite- 
willed Jackson, with his strongly-marked indi- 
viduality, to head the columns of the Democracy 
and lead them on to victory. 

The name and memory of Clay still hold a 
spell on our minds and hearts, but the strains of 
his almost matchless eloquence, flowing out, as 
they did, at times, with the swell and grandeur of 
some mighty symphony, no longer fill the Senate 
House, the field of his fame, the point from 
which his words went out over the land, stirring 
the hearts of his followers as with a clarion and 
summoning them to his standard. 

Web.ster, to use his own words, "still lives," 
but it is in the record of his great thoughts and 
grand eloquence which form a part of our na- 
tional renown. But his firm-set figure, his pon- 
derous brow, his cavernous and inward-looking 
eye, are no longer beheld in that august Cham- 
ber, the sceneof his great conflicts and triumphs. 
His deep, sonorous voice, rolling and swelling 
under the tide of that wondrous eloquence, which 
by turns won the imagination, captured the rea- 
son, and subdued the heart, is no longer heard 
within those walls consecrated by his genius. 
The master-mind, the controlling, ay, and the 
restraining spirit of New England, no longer 



lives and labors to direct and guide her people, 
and save her from aggressions and encroach- 
ments upon her sisters and her equals. 

And the pure patriot — the great statesman of 
the South — the man in whose policy, seZ/had no 
place, save as his personal fame was identified 
with her glory and prosperity; he who never gave 
up to party what was meant for mankind — whose 
whole life was unsullied by a stain — whose noble 
nature was never seduced by office or honors, or 
intimidated by the fear of calumny or detraction 
from the path of right; he who gave all his great 
powers to the 'task of securing to the South the 
full measure of her rights, and to the inculcation 
of those true ideas of government upon which 
rest the sovereignty of the States, and the con- 
sequent perpetuity of the Union; the man who 
never trimmed or changed his policy to suit party 
demands or exigencies; the man whose larg vir- 
tues made him the object of the hate and envy of 
party hucksters and time-serving demagogues, — 
the great Calhoun no longer lives to counsel and 
to warn us. 

The Ithuricl spear of his living intellect, with 
which, in his indignant scorn, he pierced through 
corrupt party designs, and probed to the quick, 
purchasable party demagogues, no longer gleams 
and flashes; it has been shivered and broken by 
the scythe of Death. 

The three great representative men of the na- 
tion — the grand triumvirate, who, though never 
holding the reins of Government in their hands, 
though never winning the place and title of Pres- 
ident, yet stood higher than those upon whom 
popular favor cast the office, and who, by the 
power of their intellects, molded and directed 
popular thought and ruled the rulers, — have been 
taken away. And who remain to head and lead 
parties ? 

Between those men of whom [ have spoken, 
and those who now aspire to be party leaders in 
this countiy, what a wide stretch of barren waste 
there is! Some of them are still laboring in the 
noise and confusion of past controversies. Some 
have lost their usefulness, their dignity, and their 
patriotism in the dark cess-pools of abolitionism. 
There is now no man in this country who, so to 
speak, has those large and grand national propor- 
tions whiih attract to himself the common eye, 
and center around him the common hopes of the 
country. Tliis, then, is one of the chief reasons, 
in my judgment, for the present condition of 
things. The country has now no leader. There 
is now no one great man, standing out — giant- 
like — commanding and enforcing popular regard 
and authority. It was natural, when these par- 



ties had lost their old leaders, when their places 
were filled by ambitious men of small stature, that 
affairs should assume their present aspect; that, 
in the absence of those controlling men, we should 
be broken up into fragments and sections. 

But, sir, I cannot indulge in this train of re- 
marks further, as I should both consume too much 
time and weary the patience of the House. But 
the fact has manifested itself in this House, for 
the first time in its history, that an attempt is 
making to organize it upon a merely sectional 
question. Why, sir, we yesterday heard a speech 
from a prominent member of this House, [Mr. 
Banks,] whose position is identified, as we are 
informed by himself— at least such must be the 
inference of his remarks — with a great sectional 
movement, and places himself upon that move- 
ment to claim the support of a great party in this 
House. He rests his claim for support upon 
the staunchness of his anti-slavery opinions, 
boasting here, that from the State of Massachu- 
setts, after his resistance to the Kansas-Nebraska 
act, he had been i-eturned by an overwhelming 
majority. Thus claiming, or at least allowuig us 
to infer, that he predicated his success upon the 
fact that he was identified with this great sectional 
movement. The other day we had placed upon 
our table a speech coming from one of those dan- 
dies in belle-lettres scholarships — a speech written 
for the purpose of inducing the northern mind to 
believe that the slave power of the South had 
been the great grasping power in this Confeder- 
acy, — that, from the foundation of the Govern- 
ment to the present time, the slave power had 
appropriated all the offices and power of this 
Government. Sir, what does all this mean ? 

Members from the North seem to think that 
the reason why the South has had so large a share 
in our governmental operations lies in the insti- 
tution of slavery. I tell them they are mistaken. 
It lies behind that institution. It is to be found 
in the administrative faculty belonging to the 
early settlers of the South — the Cavaliers and 
Huguenots — and which their descendants have 
inherited. 

Why, sir, I might ask, what great sentiment, 
what great governmental principle, originated at 
the North ? The idea of the separation of Cluu-ch 
and State, a.s a foundation republican principle, is 
to be found in Jefferson's bill. The right of uni- 
versal suffrage had its birth in Maryland . The 
parallelism of State rights and Federal power 
originated in North Carolina and other southern 
States. 

These men of the North talk here about tho 
aggressions of the South, and they cite the 



8 



Kansas-Nebraska act of the last session. Well, 
sir, see how history exposes their inconsistency. 
After the adoption of the Missouri compromise, 
in 1820, what took place in the North ? Why — 
if I mistake not — the North slew, with a single 
exception, every one of its members who voted 
for that compromise. And again, sir, when the 
Kansas-Nebraska bill, which repealed that com- 
promise, came before the people of the northern 
States, what do we again see } Why, sir, with 
only an exception here and there, they slew the 
men from that section who voted on this floor to 
strike out what in times past had been an offen- 
sive measure — to wit, the Missouri compromise 
line — thus showing a singular unsteadfastness. 
And yet, Mr. Clerk, is it not apparent that what 
was wrong in 1820 could not have well been 
right in 1854? And if a northern man were cut 
down at the one time on account of his favoring 
the Missouri compromise, believed at that time 
to be essential to the preservation of the national 
peace and quiet — if he were cut down for his vote 
in support of that measure, is it not passing 
strange, when the followers of these men on this 
floor in the year 1854 vote to repeal what the 
North then regarded as an objectionable measure, 
that they should, for that very act, meet with the 
same fate which had befallen their predecessors? 
Mr. Clerk, I have said far more than I dreamed 
of saying when I first rose to address this House. 
I have spoken discursively and wanderingly, and 
I have now but a few words more to say. I am 
nnxious to see this House organized. I am 
anxious that this House shall not pass under the 
control of the Republican party. I shall feel it 
my duty to use every possible effort to prevent 
such a consummation as that. And for the pur- 
pose of indicating here, and elsewhere, my own 
readiness to act with all men who are really con- 
servative; to act with men who are opposed to 
further disturbance on this exciting subject of 
slavery; to act with men who still acknowledge 
their obligations to the Federal Constitution; to 
net with men who are prepared to abide by the 
existing laws on the subject of slavery; I say 



here— and, if I am not mistaken, I think that in 
this I am speaking for almost the whole of the 
men with whom I have thus far acted — I am will- 
ing to go into a conference with all men who are 
prepared to stand on that basis, to confer together, 
and see if they cannot devise some plan by which 
there may be a safe, healthful, and conservative 
organization of this House. 

Now, Mr. Clerk, it seems to me that the 
struggle between the dominant parties in this 
House is simply this: whether the great principle 
of non-interference with the rights of any portion 
of this Confederacy — States or Territories — save 
by the parties interested in them, is the only true 
Republican doctrine? And, sir, that, at least, is 
my political creed on this subject. And, unless 
I have misunderstood the gentlemen who have 
thus far acted with me, they occupy the same 
ground; and believing this, I am willing to confer 
with those members of this House who stand 
upon this general platform with me — to meet and 
confer with them, not as parties struggling only 
for personal or political ascendency, but as men 
of any or all parties, actuated only by one com- 
mon desire to serve the great interests of the 
country, and to insure a true and conservative 
organization of this House. I say, sir, that 
unless I am greatly mistaken in the feelings and 
the opinions of those with whom I have acted, I 
am but expressing their own thoughts, and giving 
utterance to their own wishes and their own 
hopes. And I submit this in taking my seat — 
and I beg that my words may be heard and 
understood — that if no organization be effected 
this day, those members of the House, coming 
from what sections they may, who are willing to 
abide by existing laws on the subject of slavery, 
who feel it their duty to vote for the admission 
of a State into this Union whether its constitu- 
tion does or does not recognize slavery as a part 
of its social system, meet in this Hall this even- 
ing, at half past seven o'clock, for the purpose 
of having a conference to devise some plan by 
which a conservative organization may be ef- 
fected here. 




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